Dragon On Top Quotes

Kill first, ask questions of the corpse later ~ G.A. Aiken

I know I'm not an easy She-dragon to. not fear." "I'm not afraid of you, Ghleanna. I've never been afraid of you. To be quite honest. I think you're amazing. I always have. Since the first time you ignored me. ~ G.A. Aiken

I'm at the top of my game. And that game is Monopoly. I'm standing on the board right now. ~ Jarod Kintz

He crouched down next to me. I put my hand on the hem of his jeans. It was the first time I'd touched him since that day in the cafeteria line.
"I've got so much to tell you," he said, so quietly I almost couldn't hear. "Been thinking about how to even start."
"Start anywhere," I whispered. "I just want to know."
"I feel like I've already told you everything, in a way. I've been talking to you in my head for eight years, writing epics and sequels to epics, and sequels to the sequels."
I let my fingers move down to the laces of his boots, then up to the top of his sock. One more millimeter and my fingertip would be against his skin. I moved it back down, resting on the knob of his ankle. "I'm here now," I said. "You can talk to me, right out loud."
Just then, two boys, eight or nine years old, crashed into the grove, leaping over the stream like we had. They froze when they saw us; I jerked my hand away from Cameron's ankle and sat up.
"Oh," one boy said, "hi."
"Hi," I said. "We were just leaving." I got up without Cameron's help, brushed myself off, and followed him back to the parking lot. ~ Sara Zarr

Did you ever think much about jobs? I mean, some of the jobs people land in? You see a guy giving haircuts to dogs, or maybe going along the curb with a shovel, scooping up horse manure. And you think, now why is the silly bastard doing that? He looks fairly bright, about as bright as anyone else. Why the hell does he do that for living?
You kind grin and look down your nose at him. You think he's nuts, know what I mean, or he doesn't have any ambition. And then you take a good look at yourself, and you stop wondering about the other guy…

You've got all your hands and feet. Your health is okay, and you make a nice appearance, and ambition-man! You've got it. You're young, I guess: you'd call thirty young, and you're strong. You don't have much education, but you've got more than plenty of other people who go to the top. And yet with all that, with all you've had to do with this is as far you've got And something tellys you, you're not going much farther if any.

And there is nothing to be done about it now, of course, but you can't stop hoping. You can't stop wondering…

…Maybe you had too much ambition. Maybe that was the trouble. You couldn't see yourself spending forty years moving from office boy to president. So you signed on with a circulation crew; you worked the magazines from one coast to another. And then you ran across a little brush deal-it sounded nice, anyway. And you worked that until you found something better, something tha ~ Jim Thompson

Over the last decades, the travel industry and media have unwittingly teamed up to create the gap this book aspires to fill. I read a lot of travel sections, travel sites, and travel magazines, and I realized one day I was getting punch-drunk on how fantastic everything was. There s just so much Escape, Undiscovered, Quaint, Top 10 Most Amazing . . . , Secret Beaches, Incredible Islands, Savvy, Frugal, Best Ever. These adjectives just don t connect with most of my experiences on the road life, misadventure, and a dose of Murphy s Law often get in the way. ~ Doug Lansky

The wonderful science behind taking the chastity pill is to preserve honor, respect, purity and worth. Again, the value of a woman's future is dependent on how well she blocks any advances, foul balls, interceptions or explorations.
It's no surprise I question everything. What does going to the movies have to do with my vagina? What does going to the grocery store at ten pm at night to pick up a package of brownie mix have to do with my vagina? Why is ok for me not to go to a high school football game? Does wearing a tank top instead of a short sleeve shirt compromise my vagina shield? Do I have an Anti-Vagina Defense security chip installed on me that I'm not aware of, one that only works with loose clothing? ~ Sadiqua Hamdan

So," he said, flicking her nose, "how long have you wanted - "

"I don't see how that's any of your business, Captain Westfall. And I won't tell you until you tell me."

He flicked her nose again, and she batted away his fingers. He caught her hand in his, holding it up so he could look at her amethyst ring - the ring she never took off, not even to bathe. "The Yulemas ball. Maybe earlier. Maybe even Samhuinn, when I brought you this ring. But Yulemas was the first time I realized I didn't like the idea of you with - with someone else." He kissed the tips of her fingers. "Your turn."

"I'm not telling you," she said. Because she had no idea; she was still figuring out when it had happened, exactly. It somehow felt as if it had always been Chaol, even from the very beginning, even before they'd ever met. He began to protest, but she pulled him back down on top of her. "And that's enough talking. I might be tired, but there are still plenty of things to do instead of going for a run. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Interlaken

Get a running start. Catch
a good wind, he said: Be a good

bird. I thought him German
as his hand did the wave––tumult

of syllables, the ocean. A gust carried us
from the top of a ridge to where land

helixes hug vague bodies
of water, pebbled pastures

skimming treelines across the range
littered with wildflowers. Winds lilted:

It's not your day to go, as I watched
clouds blush vermillion, flying

in tandem as a crow does over
reservoirs and glacial gorges. That high

up, I thought maybe we could fall
in love, full of pomp and spectacle,

but he was a stranger, and to him, I was
strange; possibly ugly. Everyone

peddles timing––the random alchemy
of abutting molecules––though

I've grown weary of waiting. Stillness
is the danger. So I spread out

my arms, carved ciphers into ether
while a choir could be heard along

the nave where winding trails scissor
the basin. Spiraling downward,

I mouthed a new prayer, knelt in air
for deliverance, morphing into needle

of a compass, unbeholden to a place
inhospitable: the mind. The mind bent

on forgetting: I was blown wide open. ~ Su Hwang

She wanted to ride him, to feel all that strength pulsing beneath her, but the most primitive part of her brain knew that this first time, he was going to be on top. A man like Declan was dominant to his core. ~ Katie Reus

We crunched over the gravel in front of my house. It was dark and empty, my dad long gone on his way to Moab and the beckoning Book Cliffs.

"Would you like to come in for a minute? You could check the house for bad guys, and I could make us something yummy to eat. I think I have ice cream in the freezer and I could make us some hot fudge topping to put on top?" I waggled my eyebrows at him in the dim interior of the truck, and he smiled a little.

"Bad guys?"

"Oh you know, I'm here all alone, the house is dark. Just look under the beds and make sure no one is hiding in my closet."

"Are you afraid to be alone at night?" His brows were lowered with concern over his black eyes.

"Nope. I just wanted to give you a reason to come inside."

His expression cleared, and his voice lowered even further. "Aren't you reason enough?"

I felt the heat rise in my face. "Hmmm," was all I said.

"Josie."

"Yes?"

"I would love to come in. ~ Amy Harmon

Take it easy, friend," siad Peter, regaining his balance, quickly understanding the condition Henry was in.
"Friend? You left us. In the caves." Henry's muscles tensed.
Peter stepped back cautiously. Henry didn't look like himself.
"Seems someone can't hold his drink," Peter said. He didn't go further, sensing then that Valerie might be thinking of her father.
"And now," Henry continued on his own track, stepping closer to meet him, the smell of alcohol on his breath, "my father, too is dead."
Valerie moved to Henry. "Please, don't do this," she said, stepping in. "It's not worth it."
Henry pushed past her, not realizing his own weight. The force knocked her back. Peter grabbed Henry's arm and twisted it. Overreacting, Henry reared back his fist and landed a punch in the hollow of Peter's eye. The crowd laughed as Peter fell hard to the ground.
Henry scrambled on top him, held him by the collar, forced Peter to face him as he'd never done. He looked into the eyes of the man he wanted to blame for his parents' deaths, because it was a shelter from the terrible thought that everything could be lost to a simple slip of fate. "You filth," he spat out.
This really got the villagers going. But Peter didn't laugh. He pulled a knife from his boot and leapt up, thrusting it viciously in Henry's face.
"Keep your hands off her or I'll cut them off! ~ Sarah Blakley-Cartwright

Piketty would impose a progressive annual tax on capital. By a static analysis, such a tax might reduce the yield of capital to the rate of GDP expansion and thus eliminate the bias toward top-heavy accumulation by elites. Upholding the secular stagnation theory of permanent growth slowdown, he naturally focuses on depressing the return to capital. Taking money from the rich and giving it to government might seem to address "inequality." But by putting capital into the hands of the least productive users of it - politicians - he would aggravate the very stagnation he warns against. ~ George Gilder

I know that spot," Puck said, standing several feet back from the Iron knight. "A woman with crazy long hair used to live on the top floor, but it's empty now. ~ Julie Kagawa

What about the entrance to the cave?" she asked. He snapped his fingers as if he'd forgotten all about it.
"Excellent point."
Myrnin dragged the largest, heaviest table over, top down, and covered up with it the hole he'd made in the floor. Then he took handfuls of broken glass and mounded it up on all sides.
Myrnin artistically sprinkled some more broken glass. "There," Myrnin said, and backed off to the stairs again. "What do you think?"
"Fabulous." She sighed. "Brilliant job of camouflage."
"Normally, I'd add a corpse," he said, "just to keep people at bay. But that might be good enough. ~ Rachel Caine

I have wondered on many occasions if any confidence I have is just a weird side effect of foolishness and I live under the weight of so much embarrassment, I'm surprised the top of my head isn't flat. ~ Jenny Slate

For each glass, liberally large, the basic ingredients begin with ice cubes in a shaker and three or four drops of Angostura bitters on the ice cubes. Add several twisted lemon peels to the shaker, then a bottle-top of dry vermouth, a bottle-top of Scotch, and multiply the resultant liquid content by five with gin, preferably Bombay Sapphire. Add more gin if you think it is too bland ... I have been told, but have no personal proof that it is true, that three of these taken in the course of an evening make it possible to fly from New York to Paris without an airplane. ~ Isaac Stern

We've known his family forever. He doesn't seem to care about the scandal in ours, and he's an excellent shot-"
"That would certainly be at the top of my list of requirements for a husband," Minerva broke in, eyes twinkling. "'Must be able to hit a bull's-eye at fifty paces.'"
"Fifty paces? Are you mad? It would have to be a hundred at least."
Her sister burst into laughter. "Forgive me for not knowing what constitutes sufficient marksmanship for your prospective mate." Her gaze grew calculating. "I heart that Jackson is a very good shot. Gabe said he beat everyone today, even you."
"Don't remind me," Celia grumbled.
"Gabe also said he won a kiss from you."
"Yes, and he gave me a peck on the forehead," Celia said, still annoyed by that. "As if I were some…some little girl."
"Perhaps he was just trying to be polite."
Celia sighed. "Probably.
I didn't kiss you "properly" today because I was afraid if I did I might not stop.
"The thing is…" Celia bit her lower lip and wondered just how much she should reveal to her sister. But she had to discuss this with someone, and she knew she could trust Minerva. Her sister had never betrayed a confidence. "That wasn't the first time Jackson kissed me. Nor the last."
Minerva nearly choked on her chocolate. "Good Lord, Celia, don't say such things when I'm drinking something hot!" Carefully she set her cup on the bedside table. "He kissed you?" She seized Celia's free hand. "More than o ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Don't climb on others to get to the top;
soar like an eagle. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

[I]n addition to being a Spirit person, healer, and wisdom teacher, Jesus was a social prophet. There was passion in his language. Many of his sayings (as well as actions) challenged the domination system of his day. They take on pointed meaning when we see them in the context of social criticism of a peasant society. His criticisms of the wealthy were an indictment of the social class at the top of the domination system. His prophetic threats against Jerusalem and the temple were not because they were the center of an "old religion" (Judaism) soon to be replaced by a new religion (Christianity) but because they were the center of the domination system. His criticism of lawyers, scribes, and Pharisees was not because they were unvirtuous individuals but because commitment to the elites led them to see the social order through elite lenses.

Jesus rejected the sharp social boundaries of the established social order and challenged the institutions that legitimated it. In his teaching, he subverted distinctions between righteous and sinner, rich and poor, men and women, Pharisee and outcasts. In his healings and behavior, he crossed social boundaries of purity, gender, and class. In his meal practice, central to what he was about, he embodied a boundary-subverting inclusiveness.

In his itinerancy he rejected the notion of a brokered kingdom of God and enacted the immediacy of access to God apart from institutional mediation. His prophetic act against the mon ~ Marcus J. Borg

On a ship, everything is enclosed: the people are right on top of each other and can't get up and walk away. ~ Patrick O'Brian

Science,' he informed me, 'might not yet have all the answers, but it is the only verifiable - and hence meaningful - way of asking the right questions.'
'But those questions are nearly always asked through the voices of materialism, mechanism, and reduction. Has it occurred to you that the only aspects of the universe that such an approach will reveal are those that are materialistic, mechanistic, and reductionist?'
'Has it occurred to you,' he countered, 'that the universe really is nothing more than matter and energy, which we can understand through, and only through, analysis?'
I suddenly felt like launching myself out of the pool and landing on top of him. Instead I said, 'And analyzing as you scientists do, every year you understand more and more about less and less until someday you will know everything about nothing. ~ David Zindell

Barbara and I had arrived early, so I got to admire everyone's entrance. We were seated at tables around a dance floor that had been set up on the lawn behind the house. Barbara and I shared a table with Deborah Kerr and her husband. Deborah, a lovely English redhead, had been brought to Hollywood to play opposite Clark Gable in The Hucksters. Louis B. Mayer needed a cool, refined beauty to replace the enormously popular redhead, Greer Garson, who had married a wealthy oil magnate and retired from the screen in the mid-fifties. Deborah, like her predecessor, had an ultra-ladylike air about her that was misleading. In fact, she was quick, sharp, and very funny. She and Barbara got along like old school chums. Jimmy Stewart was also there with his wife. It was the first time I'd seen him since we'd worked for Hitchcock. It was a treat talking to him, and I felt closer to him than I ever did on the set of Rope. He was so genuinely happy for my success in Strangers on a Train that I was quite moved. Clark Gable arrived late, and it was a star entrance to remember. He stopped for a moment at the top of the steps that led down to the garden. He was alone, tanned, and wearing a white suit. He radiated charisma. He really was the King. The party was elegant. Hot Polynesian hors d'oeuvres were passed around during drinks. Dinner was very French, with consommé madrilène as a first course followed by cold poached salmon and asparagus hollandaise. During dessert, a lemon soufflé, and cof ~ Farley Granger

If they had $2.00 for food, they had to give $1.00 to the union. Otherwise, they would never get out of the trap of poverty. They would never have a union because they couldn't afford to sacrifice a little bit more on top of their misery. ~ Cesar Chavez

Humans are thought to be at the top of the food chain...
But there are beings who hunt them as food.
These monsters who feed on the dead flesh of humans.
They are called...
...Ghouls. ~ Sui Ishida

We are all changed by this war, Soph. Daniel is your brother now that Rachel is ... gone. Truly your brother. And this baby, he or she is innocent of ... his or her creation.'
'It's hard to forget,' she said quietly. 'And I'll never forgive.'
'But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.'
Sophie sighed. 'I suppose,' she said, sounding too adult for a girl of her age.
Vianne placed a hand on top of her daughter's. 'We will remind other, our? On the dark days. We will be strong for each other. ~ Kristin Hannah

I don't think I'm an intentional liar, but I'm a little bit of an exaggerator sometimes. If I'm exaggerating, and the journalist exaggerates on top of that, then we end up in funny territory. ~ Autre Ne Veut

There was practically nothing the dragon could do to people that they had not, sooner or later, tried on one another, often with enthusiasm. ~ Terry Pratchett

I'm tired of playing the good, calm girl. I rise up on my knees, reach over and hit him across the top of his head.
"Fuck," he curses. "What the hell was that for?"
"That's for being an asshole!" I hit him again…
Reed pushes me back, hard, against the passenger door. "Sit the fuck down! You're gonna make us crash."
"I'm not going to sit down!" I swing at him again. "I'm tired of you and your insults and your awful friends! ~ Erin Watt

night, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky. That's how quiet it is. After a while it's almost more than I can stand. I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I want to sing, shout, stamp my feet, clap my hands, anything to declare my presence. My conversation with the soldier had been the first words I'd said aloud in weeks. The Hum died on the tenth day after the Arrival. I was sitting in third period texting Lizbeth the last text I ~ Rick Yancey

In addition, there are huge benefits to communal effort in and of itself. By definition, all organizations consist of people working together. Focusing on the team leads to better results for the simple reason that well-functioning groups are stronger than individuals. Teams that work together well outperform those that don't. And success feels better when it's shared with others. So perhaps one positive result of having more women at the top is that our leaders will have been trained to care more about the well-being of others. My hope, of course, is that we won't have to play by these archaic rules forever and that eventually we can all just be ourselves. We ~ Sheryl Sandberg

No one wants to die or even plans to die, at least not when you are young and living life on top of everything, stepping on gold, running the miles with hot chicks on tow, but even if I wasn't a rock star, and just a normal civilian, I still wouldn't plan to die young. Death is so boring. ~ Sofea Shah

The roar behind him was louder than anything he had ever heard in his life; a monstrous fist punched him in the back, knocking all the wind out of him even before he landed, sprawled on his belly on the wall top, barely holding on to his staff as it swung over the edge. ~ Robert Jordan

Enthusiasm is a volcano on whose top never grows the grass of hesitation. ~ Khalil Gibran

top connecting with the world. Connect with yourself on your beach. Stop thinking. Stop analyzing. Start feeling. Start dreaming. ~ Kim Ha Campbell

Would it be politically incorrect to call a top-ranked female anchor (with a law degree) currently on the cover of Vanity Fair a bimbo? Or would it be rude, ludicrous, wrong and pathetic? Nothing about this is hard. ~ Kathleen Parker

Of the things I had not known when I started out, I think the most important was the degree to which the legacy of the McCarthy period still lived. It had been almost seven years since Joe McCarthy had been censured when John Kennedy took office, and most people believed that his hold on Washington was over. ... among the top Democrats, against whom the issue of being soft on Communism might be used, and among the Republicans, who might well use the charge, it was still live ammunition. ...

McCarthyism still lingered ... The real McCarthyism went deeper in the American grain than most people wanted to admit ... The Republicans' long, arid period out of office [twenty years, ended by the Eisenhower administration], accentuated by Truman's 1948 defeat of Dewey, had permitted the out-party in its desperation, to accuse the leaders of the governing party of treason. The Democrats, in the wake of the relentless sustained attacks on Truman and Acheson over their policies in Asia, came to believe that they had lost the White House when they lost China. Long after McCarthy himself was gone, the fear of being accused of being soft on Communism lingered among the Democratic leaders. The Republicans had, of course, offered no alternative policy on China (the last thing they had wanted to do was suggest sending American boys to fight for China) and indeed there was no policy to offer, for China was never ours, events there were well outside our control, and our feudal proxies ~ David Halberstam

After Carol had left, as Symons threw away a pile of used tissues and rearranged the cushions on the couch, he remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him [as a career counselor] was the idea that they ought somehow, in the normal course of events, to have intuited
long before they had finished their degrees, started families, bought houses and risen to the top of law firms
what they should properly be doing with their lives. They were tormented by a residual notion of having through some error or stupidity on their part missed out on their true 'calling. ~ Alain De Botton

I switched the light out again. The room was totally dark, not even the starlight showing while my eyes adjusted. Perhaps I would ask for one of those LED alarm radios, though I'm very fond of my old brass alarm clock. Once I tied a wasp tot the striking-surface of each of the copper-coloured bells on top, where the little hammer would hit them in the morning when the alarm went off.
I always wake up before the alarm goes, so I got to watch. ~ Iain Banks